Some small breweries (like mine) can only afford to fill bombers. I have a 4 head manual filler. There's no way it would be cost effective for me to fill 12 oz bottles until I get a real bottling machine.

My IPA sells for $7 on store shelves. Some of our higher gravity beers sell for 10 or more. I can tell you right now that even at those prices we have a hard time making ends meet.

But what does/would your IPA sell for at the brewery? (can you even do that in Alabama?)

I know plenty of breweries who do not undercut local stores when they sell direct and they make a killing. One local kept the brewery running with their tap room when it was undergoing some reorganization and dumping a distributor and sold 1500bbl out the door that year at a whopping margin that got them in the black quickly.

I'm sure the blog post was not meant to suppose a conspiracy theory that breweries were packaging in 22 ouncers to draw in some magical profit, rather to say the bomber is generally not a good deal.

You're correct of course, but maybe you heard the news New Belgium will open in NC in 2015. Perhaps I should revisit the topic in about 2 years and see just how much the Rampant prices change when they are just up the hill.

FWIW - Oskar Blues has opened in Brevard already and I have not seen retail prices drop in NC, although the packaging now has a nice brewed in Brevard, NC line on it. I doubt when Sierra Nevada opens next year (or is it later this year?) in Mills River, NC (near Asheville) their retail prices drop either.

I really don't get the 2,000 mile freshness comment. Are you implying beers we get on the East Coast from say Escondido are aged and not fresh? Wow, I guess that Enjoy By 5/17 I had back in April was past it's prime.

So without going back and reading over the whole article...why is there a big jump in price for the bomber.

IME, it's almost entirely due to labor costs. The packaging (per unit volume) costs about the same, but it takes us about four times as many man-hours per unit volume. That's because we have a four-head semi-automated bottling line for 12s, but have to fill 22s manually, four at a time. The margins are the same for a $9 six-pack and a $5 bomber at this scale.

If you're a company the size of New Belgium, on the other hand, I think the answer is that you're pricing the bombers in line with what the smaller breweries *have* to charge, and making better margins on them. Or even undercutting them a little, because $5 is the bottom of the range for a bomber around here.

A serious question: In reality...who does this pricing strategy really benefit? The brewery...or the consumer?

It must be the consumer, because it sure doesn't benefit the (small) brewer. People like to try things in smaller quantities, and apparently they're willing to pay a premium for that. We get a *lot* of flack over not offering our flagship beers in 22s, but the reality is that we'd have to cut production in order to do that much low-volume packaging. There just aren't enough hours in the day.

Agree with sean (as usual). Also, there's a weird fine line you have to walk on pricing. If you charge too much people will not buy your beer often enough but if you charge too little there is a perception of lower quality. Big breweries can undercut small breweries a little on price, but if they undercut too much the mystique goes away.

Agree with sean (as usual). Also, there's a weird fine line you have to walk on pricing. If you charge too much people will not buy your beer often enough but if you charge too little there is a perception of lower quality. Big breweries can undercut small breweries a little on price, but if they undercut too much the mystique goes away.

I've seen this locally for sure, where one big brewer will charge $4 for a bomber and another will charge $10 for a special bomber, and people go for the special one. Part of it is the perception of rarity and quality, but the reality is these two big breweries are the same with the same brewers (sort of) - Redhook and Widmer.

Show me a brewery selling 12ouncers for a better deal than bombers, then you have an article.

I don't get it. The most I've seen a 6-pack of beer go for is roughly $15, which works out to $4.58 for a 22 fl oz bomber. At least around here, bombers bottom out at $4.99, so the same beer in a 6-pack is always going to be cheaper, per unit volume.